TRENDING

Mobile

BlackBerry goes for BYOD (and enterprise) appeal in ad

Is the way to agencies’ hearts through the Super Bowl? BlackBerry seems to think so.

As part of its Jan. 30 launch event, the company formerly known as Research in Motion announced that it will for the first time run a commercial during Super Bowl XLVII on Sunday. The above image is a still shot from the forthcoming commercial. BlackBerry is sharing this image on all of its social media outlets, which include over 30 million people between Facebook and Twitter.

This is definitely a sign that BlackBerry — which announced it was dropping Research in Motion as the company’s name and changing it to the product itself — wants to appeal to a mass market, which these days could be the way to win back its government and other enterprise users.

BlackBerry traditionally has been viewed as a “work phone” that people used on the job. But in order to maintain its share of government users in the new “bring your own device” paradigm, the company needs to adjust its products and marketing to appeal to the commercial market. After all, any smart phone is becoming a work phone. So a Super Bowl ad seems a good place to start.

BlackBerry 10, the new operating system with features for both on- and off-the-job use, performed well in our test drive in November 2012, and it has generally received good reviews elsewhere. Late last year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement signed up to try BlackBerry 10 devices as part of a pilot.

But BlackBerry still has a way to go. Despite the launch earlier this week, the first BB10 phone — the Z10 — won’t show up until March and versions with a physical keyboard will take a little longer.

So we’ll still have to wait to see if BB10 really is a good option for enterprise users. Meanwhile, everyone have a great and safe Super Bowl Sunday, and, for the record – Go Ravens!